The College of Islamic Sciences at the University of Karbala discussed the doctoral dissertation titled “Qur’anic Rhetoric in Light of the Book Mizan al-Hikmah,” submitted by PhD student Ali Jaafar. The discussion was held in the Imam Hussein (peace be upon him) Hall at the college, in the presence of a number of professors, researchers, and postgraduate students.

The dissertation examined Qur’anic rhetoric in light of the book Mizan al-Hikmah by its author Muhammad Al-Rayshahri (may God have mercy on him), which combines the light of the Holy Qur’an with the wisdom of the Infallibles (peace be upon them) within a precise scientific methodology. The study aimed to highlight the rhetorical meanings of Qur’anic texts when compared with the hadiths of Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them), and to analyze their styles through the three sciences of rhetoric: semantics, eloquence, and rhetorical embellishment.

The dissertation confirmed that the Holy Qur’an is not merely a text to be read, but a universal project of guidance and a comprehensive divine discourse that transcends time and place to address different groups of humanity, influencing minds and hearts alike. It also clarified that Qur’anic rhetoric was not linguistic luxury, but rather a means of guidance and a bridge between revelation and humanity, forming a unique pattern of expression that cannot be measured against anything else.

The research reviewed Al-Rayshahri’s methodology in collecting Qur’anic verses and linking them to the noble hadiths, and classifying them into precise thematic chapters covering human affairs from creed to ethics, society, politics, economics, and history, in a way that allows a view of the integration of texts and their semantic harmony. It also indicated that the primary aim of the book Mizan al-Hikmah is to clarify the concept of wisdom and the means of attaining it, and that adherence to what it contains achieves justice and completeness in understanding the texts.

The study adopted the descriptive-analytical method, relying on sources of exegesis, hadith, language, and rhetoric, in addition to documenting the author’s biography from reliable digital sources. It was divided into an introduction and three chapters:

The first chapter was devoted to topics in the science of semantics, addressing declarative and non-declarative speech, fronting and delaying, ellipsis, definiteness and indefiniteness, and shifts in grammatical person.

The second chapter included topics in the science of eloquence, such as simile, metaphor, metonymy, and figurative expression.

The third chapter was devoted to rhetorical embellishment, including repetition, paronomasia, antithesis, contrast, cadence, parallelism, and stylistic correspondence.

The dissertation concluded that Qur’anic rhetoric, as manifested in the Book of God and reflected in the wisdom of the Infallibles, is a rhetoric of guidance, construction, and persuasion, and that the book Mizan al-Hikmah represents an integrated model of the interaction between the Qur’anic text and the wisdom of Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them), opening new horizons for understanding and rhetorically analyzing the texts with precision.